Ibrahima Konat\u00e9 was withdrawn late in Saturday\u2019s 1\u20131 draw with Chelsea and head coach Arne Slot has sought to temper concern over the nature of the problem. Slot passed on the player\u2019s own readout to reporters, saying \u201cCramp.\u201d<\/p>\n
Slot added context after the match. \u201cThe way he limped off, he told me it was cramp but let\u2019s hope he\u2019s right in his assessment.\u201d That account suggests the substitution was precautionary, but Liverpool have still scheduled tests to confirm there is no more serious issue.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe always have to wait and see,\u201d Slot said. \u201cSee how he feels and how that will work out.\u201d If the problem is indeed confined to cramp Konat\u00e9 may not miss any matches. Liverpool are back in action on Friday and, as the club assess his condition, the player\u2019s availability for the trip to Villa rests on his training status by Thursday. If he is comfortable in training, starting against Aston Villa at Villa Park, the game which could guarantee fourth place, is realistic.<\/p>\n
Liverpool remain in a delicate position. Champions League qualification for next season is likely, but still not fully secure, and a late collapse is a concern with sixth-place Bournemouth chasing history. The squad\u2019s depth at centre back is stretched, with the often unavailable Gomez stepping in as the only source of cover.<\/p>\n
Konat\u00e9 is also approaching a contract crossroads. He remains on course to become a free agent at the end of next month, but it \u201cdoesn\u2019t seem likely\u201d that he has played his last game for Liverpool. The player publicly stated in late April that he is \u201cclose\u201d to signing a new contract and there is a \u201cbig chance\u201d it happens.<\/p>\n
Even with those signals, Liverpool cannot realistically enter next season without adding at least one centre back. Giovanni Leoni could be healthy around late summer, but the teenage defender might not be in a place where he can suddenly be thrown in at the deep end after such a devastating injury.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Slot said Konat\u00e9 had “Cramp.” Tests continue; he could start at Villa if training goes well by Thu.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13727,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175,172],"tags":[299],"class_list":["post-13728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-liverpool","category-epl","tag-arne-slot"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13728"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13728\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}